Salted Beer Caramel Corn

I know I have been horrible about posting, but we are about 3 weeks away from Operation Baby #2, so finishing the nursery has pretty much become our main goal at this point.  I am determined to finally finish up the posts on my grandfather's Vintage Beer Themed Party though so then I can hopefully move on to posting about the nursery.  : )  

So you all know that I wanted to keep the dessert table beer themed & where else did I look for ideas, but Pinterest.  I came across the idea of Salted Beer Caramel Corn on the blog The Beeroness.  It really turned out to be a hit because it balanced out the sweet & the salty.  

Here is a list of Ingredients (I changed their 1/3 cup corn kernels to 2 bags of microwavable popcorn mostly because we have some Boy Scouts in our neighborhood who sell a shit-ton of popcorn & we ALWAYS have way too many in our pantry).

1/3 cup corn kernels (I used 2 bags of microwavable popcorn instead)

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 tbs light corn syrup

½ cup imperial stout (I used Guinness), plus 2 tbs, divided

4 tbs butter

1 tsp coarse sea salt

So after gathering all of your ingredients, you can start making your caramel corn.  You start by preheating the oven to 250.  Now the directions on the The Beeroness blog give you great instructions for making your own popcorn.  I used 2 bags of microwavable popcorn & just followed the instructions on the bags.  I wasn't sure that 1 bag was enough to create the 7 cups needed of popcorn, but 2 bags was definitely enough &  I may or may not have eaten any extra... ; ) 

So take your 7 cups of popcorn & place them on a large baking pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray, making sure that they are all evened out & not overlapping each other.  Stick that in your preheated oven while you make your caramel sauce. 

To make the caramel sauce, add the brown sugar, light corn syrup, ½ cup stout and butter to a saucepan over high heat. Stir just until the sugar dissolves. Allow to boil for 7 minutes, without stirring. Remove from heat & immediately stir in the last 2 tablespoons of stout.

Take your popcorn back out of the oven & then take a silicon spatula that you have also sprayed with cooking spray & gently pour the caramel sauce over the corn, stirring to coat.  Toss it back in the oven to bake for 20 mins.  After 20 minutes, take it out & stir, and then bake for an additional 20 minutes.

Once you are done with the baking, take it out & spread the caramel corn mixture evenly onto parchment of wax paper & sprinkle with the sea salt.  I let mine sit for about an hour to make sure it was tight & then stored it in a tubberware contained until it was time to sit it out at the party.  It was really a good addition to the dessert table & something for the people to snack on who weren't that interested in sweets (although I'm not sure I trust those people, haha).